Issue #0713/1 - Duplex printing requirement is now included in the Energy Star standard for certain devices – a good move all-round but why not for more devices?
Raw power consumption, and stand-by/sleep modes in particular, was the core dynamic of the original Energy Star standard from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the European Commission. The new standard that came into effect on 1st April 2007 both redefines the meaning of power consumption and tightens up the requirements. However, duplex printing is also introduced into the standard.
In many ways, the introduction of a duplex printing requirement is the more significant element of the redefinition. For many years, CharisCo Printer Labs and TCPglobal have asserted that every office laser printer should have a duplex capability as a standard feature – together with a built-in network interface.
Now, that view is thoroughly vindicated as Energy Star requires every mono laser printer, copier and MFP device of 45ppm and above, and every colour device of 40ppm and above, to feature automatic duplexing as standard.
Furthermore, every mono laser printer, copier and MFP device of 25ppm to 44ppm, and colour device from 20ppm to 39ppm, must either include duplex as a standard feature or as an option at purchase.
Just to clarify, our use of the term ‘laser’ in this respect includes all devices that are based on electro-photographic (EP), solid ink and ‘heat intensive’ inkjet print marking technologies. This, therefore covers any device known as a ‘page printer’ (or copier/MFP), including laser, LED and solid ink. Although apparently not specified or defined by Energy Star, presumably ‘heat intensive’ inkjet includes such technologies as dye-sublimation and thermal transfer.
Duplex is important in an environmentally aware society because of its ability to save paper, thus reducing the depletion of woodlands and forests and, most significantly to Energy Star, reducing energy consumption in its manufacture, transportation and ultimate disposal.
Most print jobs could be printed on both sides of the paper. Needless to say there are some print jobs that are single page anyway and therefore could not use the other side of the paper and there are applications that require the job to be printed simplex.
However, even though it is not possible for every piece of paper emerging from a printer to be printed on both sides, if we create an example based on a notional 80% of printed pages belonging to print jobs that are multi-page, meaning there is a possibility that they could be printed double-sided, we could estimate a potential saving on the paper bill.
Let’s then say that 10% of the pages printed as part of duplex print jobs are actually printed on only one side because they are the final page of jobs that have uneven numbers of pages.
So, if 20% of pages are single-sided jobs anyway and 8% are single-sided as final pages of uneven, multi-page jobs. This leaves 72% of pages that could be printed double sided, meaning that paper consumption is halved to 36% instead of 72%.
This means that total paper consumption is only 64% (36+20+8) of the total pages expected – a saving on our paper bill of 36%, more than one-third! Imagine if we could reduce the global cut-sheet paper consumption by one-third!
While applauding and welcoming this move wholeheartedly, I would also suggest that this does not go far enough. It should require all page printer-based devices, mono and colour, above around 18-20ppm to include both duplex capability and network capability as standard features on purchase.
Why this should be required is simple. Not only does printing duplex save paper but the ‘raison d’être’ for most small networks used to be specifically for the sharing of printers. That situation has now changed because everyone wants/needs shared internet and email access and broadband provides that universal capability to a network.
However, sharing of printers is still a vital factor. Imagine never being able to share a printer – how many more printers would we need in our organisations; at what cost; with what support implications!
Energy Star should also require printer drivers to bring duplex to the forefront of the driver dialog window. By this I mean that duplex printing should be the default setting with a toggle button on the primary print dialog that allows the user to turn duplex off, for individual print jobs only, if the print job is unsuited to duplex printing. There could also be a buried option for turning duplex off altogether so that users who cannot easily benefit from duplex printing (e.g. graphic design, proofing applications) are able to disable it unless specifically required.
Bizarrely, it appears that there is no requirement for printers below the 25ppm and 20ppm levels to offer even manual duplex capability.
In point of fact, manual duplex is just not easy enough for any but the most determined users to implement (however, it is still a paper-saving feature). This is especially so on shared printers where: users need to leave their desk in order to turn the paper; before returning to their desk to click ‘OK’; so that the second side(s) can be printed; and users can return to the machine to collect their print job; and return again to their desk to continue with their work! Phew, what a performance – I know from experience!!
This could perhaps be made more simple for users – firstly by bringing the duplex issue to the fore, not just in the driver but also in brochure, specification and education materials and secondly by making it impossible for print jobs to be sent without the user accepting or rejecting the manual duplex option. It is good to see that when printing from MS Word, a manual duplex option is now positioned on the primary print dialog but this is not a suitable solution for shared printers.
Quite simply, when the first side is sent to the printer, the PC application (MS Word) holds the second side until the paper has been turned and the user gives the command for that page to be printed. So, if any other user sends a print job between the time when the user with the manual duplex job reinserts the paper into the printer and is able to return to the PC to click ‘OK’ for the second side to be printed, the interrupt job will take the reinserted piece of paper and the second side of the manual duplex job will print on a fresh sheet.
If manual duplex is to be a workable solution for a shared printer, it is necessary to have some mechanism for the printer to be locked out to other users until the manual duplex job is completed. This means that manual duplex on shared printers can probably only be implemented by the printer manufacturer and not by Microsoft or other application developers. At least some of the network printers on the market do behave in this manner whereas at least some printers with external print servers do not (procedure briefly tested on one model within each scenario).
Where the printer model involved is not network-ready with this lockout capability, manual duplex is a suitable solution only for single-user, direct connect printers.
Despite this drawback, there can be no doubt that the inclusion of a duplex capability to fulfil the requirements of Energy Star, in certain product categories, represents excellent progress and will save both energy and money.
Perhaps Energy Star should actually have been re-branded EnviroStar to reflect the broader nature of the standard!
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